Medical Design Briefs: 2021 Technology Leaders - 4

TECHNOLOGY LEADERS Electrical Connectors/Wires/Cables
speaking, the tree didn't actually make
a peep. And were the tree a pint-sized
sapling, or perhaps a mighty sequoia,
the debate would rage on regardless.
The point is, if a company is making the
most revolutionary surgical robot the
world has ever seen - the sequoia -
but is mired in holdups, who cares? The
possibly more pressing question is, who
should care?
7×37 tungsten mechanical cable with swaged stop plug on the ends. This cable assembly is used to support
motion in a surgical robotics application. (Credit: Carl Stahl Sava Industries)
Surgical robotics is a booming and
fast-paced marketplace. There is quite literally
not time to wait. As a mechanical
cable components manufacturer, customers
order individual parts all the time
- say, a fixed length of cable, cut to specific
size, along with 1,000 of this and 500
of that. And if no questions are asked
during these early and seemingly commonplace
sourcing conversations, the
parts are made, packed, shipped, and the
transaction completed. In this case however,
the buyer is charged à la carte piece
part pricing and leaves the robot maker's
procurement teams to manage multiple
vendors, multiple quality apparatuses,
multiple deliveries, and consequently,
multiple points of potential failure.
Worse, when components don't fit properly
with mating parts, or there's a burr
in a fitting, who's to blame?
Perhaps another party damaged delicate
end-fittings meant to be crimped to
a length of wire rope. Maybe parts were
damaged in a press, revealing microscopic
imperfections that prevent the smooth
joining of components. While working
without the benefit of a single point of
accountability, prices start to soar, fingers
start to point, and production starts to
stop. When these are the prevailing characteristics
of a sourcing transaction, the
tree may have fallen in the woods, but no
one's going to hear a thing.
Vet the Whole Source
Surgical robots take years to bring to
market and even when they do become
widely available, makers like Intuitive
are unrelenting in their focus on rolling
out the next model. So, the production
of tomorrow's version is perpetually
under way, while consumption of the
current one grows.
0.035 in. diameter balls being swaged to 0.024 in., 7x19 stainless steel mechanical cable used in a surgical
implantable instrument. (Credit: Carl Stahl Sava Industries)
4
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Add to the lengthy exercise in simply
advancing the prevailing technology,
and there is the ocean of regulatory and
quality certifications these sophisticated
surgical instruments require. The fact is,
it is easy to imagine how long it takes to
produce a single prototype, let alone an
entire family of robots, and get them
into the hands of awaiting surgeons
around the world. With such an interminable
production cycle baked into the
entire surgical robotics industry, any goto-market
delay can irreversibly damage
market share potential.
Medical Design Briefs 2021 Technology Leaders

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Medical Design Briefs: 2021 Technology Leaders

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